Partnership for Drug-Free Kids turns 30

The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids has refreshed its famous "Fried Egg" ad for 2016.

The iconic spot, which features an egg frying to demonstrate what happens to your brain when you take drugs, has a new ending that relates better with today's drug landscape.

"The original spot, the reason it became iconic, was partly because of its simplicity but we would never make that same ad today because the drug issue is so much more complicated," said Rebecca Shaw, director of advertising and production, Partnership for Drug-Free Kids.

Shaw added: "At the time it used to be enough to say drugs are dangerous because that was actually new information at the time. 'Any questions?' posed at the end of the spot could be rhetorical but today teens do have questions and they're not easy ones to answer."

The refreshed spot, from Campbell Ewald, is part of a larger pro-bono campaign aimed at parents of teens. The end of the ad now points those parents to go to drugfree.org where they can find resources to prepare answers for questions about drugs that their children are likely to ask.

"The target [of the spot], in a sense, hasn't changed," said Jo Shoesmith chief creative officer, Campbell Ewald. "30 years ago these parents were teens and probably exposed to that ad. At one point they were the audience we were talking to and now they're the parents of those kids that need to have those conversations."

Actress Allison Janney does the voice work for the new spot, which was directed by Janusz Kaminski. Campbell Ewald also created a 30-second radio ad. Print work for the campaign was created by BFG Communications.

"The drug landscape has really changed; it has gotten a lot more complex," said Scott Seymour, chief creative officer and vp of BFG. "The exciting part about this campaign is that the questions [featured in the work] came from real kids that were asking honest questions. The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids got questions from real parents that they didn't know how to answer, and we were able to put those into ads with kids posing the questions."